Apple may make fake photos harder to pass off as iPhone shots

Apple may soon introduce a feature in its upcoming iOS 27 that can authenticate photos taken on iPhone cameras. The system, known as Apple Reference Image, aims to verify that an image originated from an iPhone by utilizing hardware-specific information. When enabled, users would need to activate Reference Mode in the Camera settings and capture pictures using a dedicated Reference option. Photos taken with the standard camera modes would not include this verification data.

Authenticated images would then be processed through Apple's Private Cloud Compute infrastructure, receiving the raw photo and its provenance data. Apple would generate a unique ID for these images and store them. Users could share these authenticated pictures with other Apple devices, which would have the capability to check their authenticity locally.

This new feature could address the growing issue of fake photos in the era of AI. While companies like Google and entities that follow standards like C2PA are working on similar solutions, Apple is taking a unique approach by using its iPhone cameras to give each genuine capture a unique identity. This feature is still in the beta stage, and Apple has not officially announced it. However, if it makes it into the final iOS 27 release, it could provide users with a way to verify the origin of their photos.